David Storey - Saville

‘Oh, very,’ she said, and laughed.

On reaching the Park he’d released her arm: they walked along a little distance apart.

‘I knew him before he was a teacher,’ she said.

‘When?’

‘He was a student. We both grew up in the town together. We perform for one another what I believe you would call a supernumerary role: namely we invariably stand in for someone else.’

She didn’t explain it further.

They walked along for a while in silence. The path led by a lake; a statue stood in a pillared alcove on a tiny island.

He had walked here quite frequently with Margaret; often they had sat on a seat gazing across at the island and the female statue, draped to its ankles, its breasts clearly outlined beneath its robe, its gaze inclined towards the water: it had seemed, in its calmness, so much a reflection of their own relationship. Now he walked by with another woman and scarcely glanced at it; it was as if a rupture with his past had taken place, tiny, and scarcely to be considered, but perceptible and, to the extent that he discarded so much of what he felt before, disheartening and repulsive.

He added nothing further until they’d reached the gates.

A road led off to a distant housing estate; close by, opposite the Park walls, stood several large houses: their backs looked on to fields running down to the river.

‘Well, then,’ she said. ‘We’re almost there. Do you fancy’, she added, ‘another coffee? Or do you intend on walking farther?’

‘I’ll come in,’ he said.

They walked along the road by the bevelled brick wall. Originally the retaining wall to the grounds of the ruined house, which now comprised the grounds of the Park, it had fallen down in one or two places, and they could see the gardens and several covered walks inside.

‘It’s a pleasant part to live,’ he said.

‘Is it?’ She looked back now at the Park herself. ‘I suppose so. I hadn’t noticed.’

The house stood away from the road at the end of a drive: bay-windows looked out on to a lawned garden.

Unlocking the front door she revealed a polished hall: a banistered staircase rose immediately ahead; large rooms with carpeted floors opened up on either side.

‘Go straight ahead,’ she said, indicating a door at the rear of the hall. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’

He heard her feet stamping overhead.

A window looked out to the garden at the back: flower-beds, bare with winter, ran down to a distant hedge; wooden frames provided a covered walk. In the farthest distance were the hills across the valley; immediately beyond the hedge figures ran to and fro in a game of hockey.

She came in wearing a dark-brown dress. Her face, as a result of the walk, had regained some colour. She went directly to the fire, which was blazing behind a wire guard, and warmed her hands.

‘It won’t be a minute. It’s warmer at the back. We’re facing south.’ She indicated the window and the view beyond.

Later, when she brought in the coffee, she said, ‘I could get you something to eat if you like.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said.

‘What do you normally do at week-ends, in any case?’ she said.

‘I walk quite a bit.’

‘Don’t you have any friends?’

‘Most of them’, he said, ‘have left.’

‘The ugly duckling.’

‘Do you think that’s right?’

‘ I don’t think that’s right. I thought you did.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘It’s odd,’ she said, gazing at him once more across a cup, as she had in the café, ‘but your mood has changed again. It seems to fluctuate like anything.’

He laughed. He looked round him at the house: the furniture was large and set down like boulders around the fire. From outside, faintly, came shouts and the occasional click of sticks against a ball.

‘Do you play sport?’

‘I did.’

‘Not any longer?’

‘No.’

‘A native of the city. Though, of course, not quite.’

‘Saxton isn’t really anywhere, I suppose,’ he said.

‘Alienated from his class, and with nowhere yet to go.’

‘Do I seem alienated?’ he said.

‘I believe that was Philip’s word. He’s always looking for a champion, you know.’

‘A champion in what way?’ he said.

‘Why, someone who’s come to the top from the bottom. He, you see, has gone from middle to middle. His father worked in an office in the county hall.’

‘I don’t think’, he said after a moment’s reflection, ‘I’d measure progress in terms of class.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘I mean’, she added, ‘not even as an intellectual?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Well,’ she said and added after a while, ‘Wonders of one sort will never cease.’

‘Why are you always laughing?’ he said.

‘Laughing?’ She smiled.

‘Isn’t that patronizing in its way as well?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I didn’t think you’d go much by it,’ he said.

‘My boy,’ she said. ‘You’ve a lot to learn.’

He left a little later; she came with him to the door.

‘You can get a bus back, if you like,’ she said. She pointed out the stop across the road. It was as if, with his leaving, she’d lost interest in his visit.

‘I’ll probably walk back, though,’ he said.

‘It was good of you to accompany me,’ she said.

‘Perhaps I can see you next Saturday.’

‘All right.’ She shrugged.

‘The same place if you like.’

‘All right.’ She shrugged again.

He turned at the gate to wave, but found she’d already gone inside the house and closed the door.

‘See here,’ his father said, ‘it’s no good going on at him.’

He had been teaching Richard, at the table: a mass of figures on torn pieces of paper lay before them.

His brother’s face had wrinkled: it reddened; a moment later, prompted by his father’s tone of sympathy, he began to cry.

‘See here,’ his father said again. ‘It’s gone too far.’ He thumped his hand against the table: pieces of paper drifted to the floor.

His mother, who had been busy in the room upstairs, came down.

‘He can’t go on at him like that,’ his father said. ‘You can hear his voice at the end of the backs. How can he learn anything if he shouts at him?’

‘It’s better he leaves it,’ his mother said, looking in despairingly at the crowded table. ‘I’d rather he worked in the streets than we have all this.’

‘Nay, he s’ll never do that,’ his father said, indicating Richard. ‘He’s got more brains than all of them despite his shouting and his saying he’ll never do it.’

‘I haven’t said he’ll never do it,’ Colin said.

Richard had covered his face in his hands: his head was shaken from side to side; his shoulders shook, some fresh anguish broke from him as his father touched his back.

‘Nay, love,’ his father said. ‘It’s not important.’

‘It is,’ his brother said, his voice buried by his moans.

‘Nay, just look at it,’ his father said, stepping back to reveal the situation freshly to his mother. ‘He’s trained as a teacher, he’s trained as a teacher, but the first thing he does is lose his patience.’

‘It isn’t important,’ Colin said. ‘Why should he have to do it?’

‘Nay he’ll do it because he can do it,’ his father said. ‘It’s on’y thy shouting now that stops him.’

‘Do you shout at them at school?’ his mother said.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Why do you shout at Richard? He’s your brother. I would have thought you’d have cared , far more than you do for the others. Why can’t you show the same patience with him? We showed the same patience with you.’